HIV Overview

What is a Preventive HIV Vaccine?

Last Reviewed: September 16, 2025

 

What is a preventive HIV vaccine?

All vaccines “teach” our immune system to recognize and effectively defend our bodies against viruses or bacteria. Examples of existing vaccines include those for polio, tetanus, and measles. Although preventive vaccines are available for many viruses, none are currently available for HIV.

When available, a preventive HIV vaccine will be given to people who do not have HIV, with the goal of preventing HIV infection if they are exposed to the virus. A preventive HIV vaccine teaches the immune system to protect against HIV in the event of an exposure to HIV.

Are there any FDA-approved preventive HIV vaccines?

No FDA-approved preventive HIV vaccines currently exist. However, scientists are pursuing innovative strategies to design an HIV vaccine to prevent or treat HIV infection.

Because no HIV vaccines have been approved by the FDA, experimental HIV vaccines are only available in clinical trials and are not available for purchase in the United States.

Research has shown promise regarding the potential for a preventive HIV vaccine. For example,  the RV144 trial showed the ability to reduce HIV infection by about 31 percent.

The RV144 trial helped to encourage additional research on HIV prevention, including the Antibody-Mediated Prevention (AMP) Studies, which found that broadly-neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) could reduce HIV infection by up to 75 percent—but only for some strains of the virus.

Ongoing efforts aim to develop HIV prevention methods that are even more effective.

How is a preventive HIV vaccine different from a therapeutic HIV vaccine?

The goal of a preventive HIV vaccine is to prevent people from getting HIV before an exposure occurs. When available, it will be given to people who do not have HIV.

Unlike a preventive vaccine, a therapeutic HIV vaccine is for people who already have HIV. The goal of a therapeutic HIV vaccine is to strengthen the natural immune response to the virus for people with HIV.

To learn more about therapeutic HIV vaccines, read the HIVinfo What is a Therapeutic HIV Vaccine? fact sheet.

Can a person get HIV from a preventive HIV vaccine?

No, a person cannot get HIV from a preventive HIV vaccine. Unlike some vaccines (such as the flu vaccine), which use inactivated or weakened virus to build immunity, preventive HIV vaccines do not contain HIV.

Each preventive HIV vaccine being tested uses a slightly different design or strategy to build immunity to HIV, but none of them can actually transmit HIV. For example, past preventive HIV vaccines have targeted viral genes, proteins, and bNAbs to improve immunity against HIV.

Of the approximately 30,000 people who have participated in HIV vaccine studies around the world in the last 25 years, no one has gotten HIV from any of the vaccines tested.

Why is a preventive HIV vaccine important?

Treatment options for HIV have improved a lot over the last 40 years, offering effective ways to manage the virus and prevent transmission. However, using HIV medicines for treatment (known as antiretroviral therapy [ART]) or prevention (known as pre-exposure prophylaxis [PrEP]) can be challenging over a lifetime.

Like most other medicines, HIV medicines can be difficult to access in some areas and may have side effects and high costs. In addition, long-term ART requires strict adherence to a medicine schedule, which can be difficult for many people.

When people struggle to stick to a treatment schedule, they can develop drug resistance to certain HIV medicines and then must change to different medicines to keep HIV under control.

Researchers believe a preventive HIV vaccine will be the most effective way to control or eliminate new HIV infections by helping to overcome the limitations of HIV medicines.

What research is being done on preventive HIV vaccines?

Some of the areas of interest being studied in clinical trials include—

  • Different ways of giving preventive vaccines, such as using a needle and syringe versus a needle-free device
  • The immune responses that occur in people who receive a preventive vaccine
  • The safety of preventive vaccines
  • Whether a preventive vaccine protects against HIV infection
  • If the vaccine contributes to viral suppression if a person in the study gets HIV

Where can a person get more information about clinical trials studying preventive HIV vaccines?

An online database of clinical trials on preventive HIV vaccines is available from the ClinicalTrials.gov study summaries. Click on the title of any trial in the list to see more information about the study.

If you are interested in participating in a vaccine study, you can also contact the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center by calling 866-833-LIFE (5433) or by emailing [email protected].

To learn more about HIV clinical trials, read the HIVinfo HIV and AIDS Clinical Trials fact sheet.

This fact sheet is based on information from the following sources:

From the National Institutes of Health:

From the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI):

Also see the HIV Source collection of HIV links and resources.